One of the purposes of a communications test-set is to emulate a communications network. The emulation includes the sending and receiving of messages over the network to a device under test. For example, a wireless test-set may emulate a wireless network and send and receive “over-the-air” signaling messages to/from a wireless device via a radio frequency (RF) interface of the test-set.
A communications test-set typically provides a user interface (UI) that enables direct or indirect control over some of the parameters of the messages used by the test-set. Typically, each parameter that is accessible via the UI is individually designed and implemented within the software of the test-set, resulting in practical limitations on the number of parameters that can be made accessible via the UI. Parameters that are not accessible via the UI must be excluded from the messages of the test-set (e.g., if the parameters are optional) or set to fixed values.
It is inevitable that a user of a test-set will want or require access to parameters that have not been made accessible via a test-set's UI.
It is noted that, in the following description, like reference numbers appearing in different drawing figures refer to like elements/features. Often, therefore, like elements/features that appear in different drawing figures will not be described in detail with respect to each of the drawing figures.